765.84/4789: Telegram (part air)
The Consul at Geneva (Gilbert) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 7—5:22 a.m.]
286. The Assembly this evening took up consideration of draft report and recommendation submitted by the Bureau.4
The report submerges the Ethiopian draft resolution on nonrecognition in the pertinent paragraph of the resolution.
The resolution notes “that various circumstances have prevented the full application of the Covenant” but reaffirms attachment to the principles of the Covenant “which are also expressed in other diplomatic instruments such as the declaration of the American States dated August 3, 1932, excluding the settlement of territorial questions by force” (the quoted portion constitutes the final result of the Argentine efforts).
The resolution invites the governments to communicate proposals for improving the application of the Covenant for submission to the next Assembly. It refers the matter of sanctions to the Coordination Committee which “should make all necessary proposals to the governments” in order to terminate them.
The Ethiopian delegate asserted that the Bureau’s drafts begged the issues and insisted that the Assembly pronounce itself by roll call vote on the two draft resolutions he had submitted (my 280, July 3, 10 a.m.).
The Panamanian delegate stated that he had not sent the Bureau’s drafts to his Government because they were not worthy of it.
South Africa declared it could not associate itself in any manner with the Bureau resolution.
The Bureau resolution was passed with South Africa, Chile, Panama and Venezuela abstaining.
An attempt by the Ethiopian delegate to obtain a vote on their nonrecognition resolution was quashed by parliamentary tactics. In the negative vote on the Ethiopian financial assistance resolution there were 25 abstentions which were evidently a protest against the steamroller methods employed.
The date of the next Assembly was fixed for September 21.
- For text, see League of Nations, Official Journal, Special Supplement No. 151, p. 65.↩